The War Prayer by Mark Twain Summary and Reviews
|
List Price: Our Price: $4.71 You Save: $5.28 (53%) Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days Buy Used: from $1.00 (click here) Category: Book See more book details and other editions |
|---|
Book Reviews of The War Prayer
Book Review: Mark Twain still speaks to us!
Summary: 5 Stars
During the Phillipine-American war, Mark Twain got RAW on the horrible practice of going to war in the name of God. Had he been alive, the armchair war hawks of the current Afghanistan conflict would have run him out of town for this! Tell you what, watch the evening news, read this morning's paper, and then read this story. The fact that this story was written nearly a century ago makes it all the more eerie and sad that human nature has changed so little.Book Review: Not Your Father's Huck Finn
Summary: 5 Stars
The "protest" writings of Mark Twain gained renewed interest during the anti-Viet Nam War Movement and the most prominant of these writings is "The War Prayer." From 1962 to 1973, it appeared in no fewer that 4 separate collections of his stories, including "A Pen Warmed Up in Hell'" and "The Damned Human Race." In 1970, Harper&Row published "The War Prayer" on its own , in hard cover, with haunting illustrations by John Groth. The story clocks in at slightly more than 1,200 words. It is Twain at his most economic. And most vehement. The story begins as an unnamed country prepares for war, its citizens awash with patriotic rapture. Parades, mass meetings and rousing speeches have almost everybody pumped and primed for a bloody good time. On the eve of battle, a service is held and the pastor invokes God's blessings on their cause and their armies. A stranger arrives "bearing a message from Almighty God." The Lord has heard their prayer, the messenger informs them, and is willing to grant it. But only after they have heard the unspoken portions of their prayer. The secret prayer, hidden in their hearts. Twain then unleashes a blunt tutorial on the ravages of war. "(H)elp us to tear their soldiers to bloody shreads with our shells,...Lay waste their humble homes,..wring the hearts of their offending widows...their little children to wander unfriended the wastes of their desolated land." Not exactly win-one-for-the-Gipper stuff. Just a handy reminder in the age of surgical strikes. In the Post Cold War Era, and 84 years after its initial publication, "The War Prayer" remains a devastating attack on any call to arms and the concept of just and winnable warfare.Book Review: On The War Prayer
Summary: 5 Stars
"It was a time of great and exalting excitement. The country was up in arms, the war was on, in every breast burned the holy fire of patriotism; the drums were beating, the bands playing, the toy pistols popping, the bunched firecrackers hissing and spluttering; on every hand and far down the receding and fading spread of roofs and balconies a fluttering wilderness of flags flashed in the sun; daily the young volunteers marched down the wide avenue gay and fine in their new uniforms, the proud fathers and mothers and sisters and sweethearts cheering them with voices choked with happy emotion as they swung by; nightly the packed mass meetings listened, panting, to patriot oratory which stirred the deepest deeps of their hearts, and which they interrupted at briefest intervals with cyclones of applause, the tears running down their cheeks the while; in the churches the pastors preached devotion to flag and country, and invoked the God of Battles beseeching His aid in our good cause in outpourings of fervid eloquence which moved every listener. It was indeed a glad and gracious time, and the half dozen rash spirits that ventured to disapprove of the war and cast a doubt upon its righteousness straightway got such a stern and angry warning that for their personal safety's sake they quickly shrank out of sight and offended no more in that way."
So begins The War Prayer, a striking and eloquent short story which, due to the popular sentiments of the time, Twain ultimately chose not to publish at the request of his publisher, friends and family. Given the nature, and universal weaknesses, of man, the work is, in fact, timeless.
Book Review: Pass It On...
Summary: 5 Stars
This short narrative is simple and to read an understand. It gives the dramatic account of a blindly patriotic church service being interrupted by a "messenger of God," who proceeds to reveal the unspoken prayer of the congregation as heard by the ears of the LORD. It is, to put it breifly, a caution against self-centered prayer and/or a reprimand against needless bloodshed. This should be standard reading in schools and churches across the globe, especially here in the good 'ole war-mongering USA.Book Review: Short and sweet
Summary: 5 Stars
Not only is this book super short and super easy to read, it is simulataneously thought-provoking. I am a fan of Mark Twain, and this book was a good one. It gives the "other side" view of war. Very eye-opening. Spend 5 minutes reading this book. :-)